HCM CITY — HCM City Department of Health has instructed managers of public and private hospitals to strengthen the close supervision of dialysis operations after seven people died when they received dialysis treatment at a northern hospital late May.

Deputy head of the city Department of Health, Tăng Chí Thượng, ordered that hospitals should check and improve the dialysis process to ensure safety and limit incidents which could harm patients.

These hospitals should prescribe the dialysis process for patients under Ministry of Health’s guidelines on the diagnosis and treatment of diseases relating to kidneys and the urinary tract.

They should carefully check the health status of patients before dialysis, Thượng said.

In the technical process, they should point out the way to operate dialysis machines and the potential complications that can occur during dialysis treatment and how to prevent and deal with them, he added.

The control process for contaminating bacteria before, during and after dialysis should be obeyed, he said.

According to Tuổi Trẻ (Youth) newspaper, the Department of Health last Friday ordered a halt of the dialysis treatment at Vũ Anh International General Hospital because the hospital had changed the doctors who work in its dialysis division.

Doctors need to be verified to ensure they have the professional capacity to perform the process of dialysis treatment, according to the department.

The department will check and verify the hospital before allowing it to operate again.

Thủ Đức District Hospital, which provides dialysis treatment to 130 patients, for example, checked the whole process of dialysis, following the department’s requirement.

The hospital, which is the first health facility in the country to provide dialysis to 10 patients at the health centre in Bình Chiểu Ward, also stopped this activity to improve its facility there.

Dr Phạm Hữu Quốc, head of Gò Vấp District General Hospital, told Sài Gòn Giải Phóng (Liberated Sài Gòn) newspaper that the dialysis treatment started to be provided to patients at the beginning of the year.

Now, the hospital has 50 patients getting dialysis, Quốc said, adding that carefully checking the technical process for dialysis has to be done every day. —VNS